Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh

Last week I fo­cused on for­mer pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali. Re­cent ca­su­al dis­cus­sions with per­sons from all walks of life made me re­alise that there is a lack of knowl­edge and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of Re­pub­lic Day.

It is un­for­tu­nate that some are un­aware of the dif­fer­ence be­tween In­de­pen­dence and re­pub­li­can­ism, whilst oth­ers are un­fa­mil­iar with the tran­si­tion from a monar­chi­cal sys­tem of gov­ern­ment to re­pub­li­can sta­tus.

Where did this call for change orig­i­nate?

In Au­gust 1969, there was a head­line on the front page of the Trinidad Guardian – ‘Let us be a Re­pub­lic’. It was a re­port on the year­ly con­fer­ence of the St Ann’s Con­stituen­cy Of­fice of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). At this event, a mo­tion was passed for T&T to be­come a re­pub­lic. It was then for­ward­ed to the PNM Sec­re­tari­at to be tabled for ac­tion at the An­nu­al Con­ven­tion of the PNM, which was held in To­ba­go from 26–28 Sep­tem­ber 1969.

One of the changes in a re­pub­lic was that the gov­er­nor-gen­er­al was re­placed with a pres­i­dent. A sec­ond change was that T&T re­ceived a new Con­sti­tu­tion in 1976 and be­came a re­pub­lic on 1 Au­gust 1976. Lat­er, we would cel­e­brate 24 Sep­tem­ber as Re­pub­lic Day be­cause it was the date when T&T’s first Par­lia­ment was con­vened un­der the new Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion.

The head­line of the Trinidad Guardian on 31 Ju­ly 1976 was ‘Trinidad cur­tails UK links’. Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams re­alised that there was a need to cut all ties with the monar­chy. How­ev­er, it seemed odd that, for ju­di­cial is­sues, the Privy Coun­cil re­mained as the fi­nal Court of Ap­peal.

We need to ask our­selves – why did the prime min­is­ter re­tain the Privy Coun­cil? Does this make our re­pub­lic in­com­plete? Fifty years lat­er, we con­tin­ue to re­ly on the ‘wis­dom’ from the Privy Coun­cil.

So how did we treat this grand achieve­ment? Sur­pris­ing­ly, Re­pub­lic Day was tem­porar­i­ly re­moved from the of­fi­cial cal­en­dar of hol­i­days from 1999 to 2001.

Sub­se­quent­ly, in 2002, Re­pub­lic Day was re­in­stat­ed as a hol­i­day. This re­moval of Re­pub­lic Day, (the black sheep of the hol­i­days), is a strong in­di­ca­tor that a few of us did not ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the sig­nif­i­cance of our achieve­ment in 1976. One of the rea­sons is that our re­pub­li­can sta­tus was peace­ful­ly at­tained, and there were no ma­jor po­lit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal bat­tles as in the French and Amer­i­can rev­o­lu­tions of the late 18th cen­tu­ry.

When­ev­er our na­tion cel­e­brates this mile­stone, we need to se­ri­ous­ly ques­tion the pa­tri­o­tism and loy­al­ty of those who claim to be ‘proud cit­i­zens’ or use phras­es such as ‘Tri­ni to de bone’. Pos­sess­ing a coat of arms, na­tion­al an­them and elect­ing lead­ers are on­ly part of the cri­te­ria for be­ing a re­pub­lic.

Be­ing a re­pub­lic means T&T can in­de­pen­dent­ly cre­ate eco­nom­ic mod­els, de­sign poli­cies and ap­prove leg­is­la­tion to ben­e­fit its cit­i­zens. As we cel­e­brate the mile­stone of 50 years of re­pub­li­can sta­tus, it is un­for­tu­nate that we ex­pe­ri­ence heavy traf­fic on a dai­ly ba­sis.

Some­thing is wrong in our re­pub­lic when pot­holes and poor roads have be­come the norm. T&T can­not tru­ly be a re­pub­lic if cit­i­zens are not re­ceiv­ing a reg­u­lar sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter and do not feel safe in their homes.

Of­ten, it is these short­com­ings that prompt mi­gra­tion for green­er pas­tures. When­ev­er a na­tion is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing such dis­tress, then some cit­i­zens are cer­tain­ly mak­ing a mock­ery of re­pub­li­can­ism.

It is even more trou­bling that, dur­ing the past five decades, some cit­i­zens still feel they are not prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed and have been de­mand­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. An il­lus­tra­tion is in April 1984, at a con­fer­ence dubbed Forg­ing a New Democ­ra­cy. One of the speak­ers, Bas­deo Pan­day, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Labour Front, said, “A con­sti­tu­tion that fails to pro­mote the rich di­ver­si­ty of our cul­ture, or con­verse­ly, per­mits its de­struc­tion, is not worth the pa­per it is writ­ten on.”

Rev. Roy Nee­hall, for­mer Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Caribbean Con­fer­ence of Church­es, echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, “If our con­sti­tu­tion be­comes our mas­ter, then it is like a noose around our necks. It must be in the ser­vice of the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty….”

One of the high­lights of Re­pub­lic Day is the na­tion­al awards to de­serv­ing cit­i­zens. How­ev­er, since its in­cep­tion, there have been oc­ca­sion­al crit­i­cisms and ques­tions about those who re­ceived these awards. This is not unique to T&T. Across the globe, medals and oth­er awards are oc­ca­sion­al­ly be­stowed on fi­nanciers and per­sons whose loy­al­ty is to the ruler (or par­ty in pow­er) rather than the na­tion.

Hope­ful­ly, dur­ing the next fifty years, we will learn to ap­pre­ci­ate and re­spect our re­pub­lic and then maybe oth­ers will re­spect us.